Wilderness

Friday, 07 October 2016

I just finished listening to an episode of one of my top, go-to podcasts: the Enormocast. The Enormocast is focused on climbing. It definitely covers areas most non-climbers won't have any clue as to what being discussed. Yet, to paraphrase its host Chris Kalous, there really isn't anything else to talk about! And even if so, why would anyone even want to talk about something other than climbing? The beauty of Chris is that while talking about only climbing, he manages to cover a lot of other really interesting human aspects within the context of climbing. And he does it quite well.

While this episode with big wall climber Cheyne Lempe is about a big wall expedition to the extremely remote and cold Baffin Island, it's really about a lot more that just the climbing. It touches on journeys, generalized anxiety (as a medical affliction), and quite a few other thought-provoking topics.

I too have generalized anxiety. It’s not been all that long that I’ve been able to name it specifically, but as Cheyne touched upon, it’s been something that’s been part of my journey and growth pretty much my whole life. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to see how it has been at play in the past. Sometimes with mental health disorders, people tend to take a negative view, e.g. “I suffer from x.” I don’t quite see it that way. For me, anxiety can be both my greatest curse and greatest gift. As I’ve become friends with anxiety, gotten to know it better, and really have owned it, I’ve seen how I’ve let it channel me into the abyss of despair and paralysis. But I’ve also seen how it has helped me achieve incredible commanding heights. Much of this is about your brain and how it’s wired. Anxiety people have minds that think a lot… to the point of potentially harmful overthinking! I can use my brain to scare and talk myself out of everyday actions that otherwise could give me immense benefit. Or I can learn to flip the downward spiral and use my mind with all of its thoughts and ideas to spin them into great creations.

One of my favorite observations: A hammer is a tool. In and of itself, it’s neutral. It’s what you use it for that has impact (yeah, bad pun!). You can use a hammer to build a home for someone who really needs a good, safe shelter. Or you can use it to bash their skull in. Same hammer, different outcomes. One good, one bad. The hammer is neither.

Saturday, 28 March 2015

As an eleven year old in New England, I read Colin Fletcher's The Complete Walker and dreamed of wandering the wide open spaces of the west as he did. I set off on excursions into rainy and dense local woods that are littered about Massachusetts's small cities and small towns. Wide open, big sky spaces were few. Off-trail travel involved bushwhacking, swamps, and poison ivy. You'd get to the top of a peak (well, really a glorified hill but we're talking imagination here) and... you'd still be in a forest. These places are wild in their own ways and do have their share of wonder and charm. But I wanted to go big and I would eventually find my way to the west years later. But even within the claustrophobic confines of these eastern forests, I still to happened upon small sanctuaries of inspiration, quiet, and solitude.

From The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth

Around the same time, I began my life a distance runner, inspired to run marathons. My runs took me far and wide on the backroads where I lived. I sought out the wildest places possible. And, during the process of that training, I discovered the power of the journey. It's no accident that I was reading Homer's Odyssey at this time; I couldn't avoid its influence. Completing a marathon was a joyful achievement for me. And the actual journey of running the marathon was also joyful. Yet, most significantly, the months of training that lead up to the journey delivered the most joy and reward of all. All those hours on the road in those woods, each mile with a myriad of moments—from here is where the greatest pleasure arose.

Inspired by The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth, author Chris Burkhard/illustrator David McClellan, Dreamling Books.

Saturday, 17 January 2015

Or, How Did I Get Here?

I first read this seminal guide on walking when I was eleven years old and growing up in a small town in central Massachusetts. I was captivated by this image. There is something so self-contained, yet connected with the natural world about it. I found it comforting and still do.

I recognize where he is now. Not specifically, but somewhere near the Sierra Crest. I've camped in similar places many times.

It took me a long time to get to these places. The land in New England is not like the open-spaced and wide-sky west. But somehow, my path eventually lead me here and it's become much more familiar and home to me than the land of my birthplace. And perhaps it was a more deliberate path: I yearned for these places, sought them out in the east and even gave up on finding them (for a while). Obviously, I found them later on (or maybe they conspired to find me).

Fletcher himself said that his book wasn't just a how-to-do guide for the outdoors; it was, perhaps even more importantly, a how-to-be guide for the outdoors. That message got through to me. He helped launched me on the path to the natural world. This has become one of the great nourishments of my life. And a much appreciated healing element as well.

As a side note, I am here, writing this today, because his writing inspired my own.

So where am I today? Well, I was literally here:

"Let's go so we don't waste the day!"

Well deserved snack on top of Mt. Lowe

It's a 45 minute drive from my house to this place's trailhead, and as the crow flies, it's only a couple of miles. Claire and I had a great time today. She wanted to lead the way the whole time, no whining, just good spirits.

Saturday, 08 March 2014

She'll be selling cookies and lemonade at her school's rummage sale this morning to support the Rainforest Alliance. This is part of her 2nd grade endangered species project. It is entirely Audrey's and her friend Maya's idea.

"Always changing, never twice the same..." (Robert Irwin). One of the beautiful elements of this world. I try to remember it every day. The dirtbagdad is always evolving. Sometime the movement is a few steps back, but in the long view, it's always forward.